Lowering the 458 | Page 5 | FerrariChat

Lowering the 458

Discussion in '458 Italia/488/F8' started by Texasz, Sep 20, 2012.

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  1. RayJohns

    RayJohns F1 Veteran
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    How thick are the spacers? And did you change lug bolts to something longer than stock?

    Did you change wheels also?

    Also, you might want to do a static balance on the wheels to more like 1 or 2 grams. Most shops just balance the wheels on a machine that's only accurate to about an ounce or so. The other thing is to make sure they balanced the wheel with the valve stem caps on. Sometimes those can add more weight than you might realize.

    Another thing is to check runout on the wheels. On my 458, I think the clowns that transported it dropped it off the ramp and dented one of the wheels during transit. I had an odd vibration and I finally tracked it down to a distortion on the rim which was about .060" out in one area.

    Also, what tire pressures are you running? Usually 31 or 32 PSI is good for the street.

    Ray
     
  2. ilko

    ilko Karting

    Aug 20, 2008
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    Take the spacers off, see if the vibration persists.
     
  3. Petrolhead#32

    Petrolhead#32 Formula Junior
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  4. Petrolhead#32

    Petrolhead#32 Formula Junior
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    I've been thinking about this. I don't even think they make such huge impact looks wise, and all I hear is that they mess up the ride. I will do this and see.

    Thx.
     
  5. RayJohns

    RayJohns F1 Veteran
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    I did a static balance on my 458 wheels using my motorcycle static balancer (down to around 1 gram as I recall) and that helped smooth things up a bit extra on my car.

    With regard to runout, you might want to jack the car up so you can turn the wheel, then spin it by hand while observing the lip of the wheel. Get yourself a stick or something (unless you happen to own a dial indicator or dial test indicator) and then see if there is any runout laterally by putting the tip near the edge of the lip.

    On my pickup truck, when I converted it over to 4 wheel disc brakes, I changed the wheels, calipers, etc. and had to run spacers. After finishing everything, I stuck a dial indicator on all four wheels to check runout in both directions. Much to my surprise, the front right wheel had about .007" run out. WTH? So I pulled the wheel off and checked the rotor; sure enough it did as well. I checked the hub but no runout. What the heck? Turned out someone before me had used a hammer and raised some very small burrs along the back side edge of the spindle hub. Those burrs where pushing the mounting hat off ever so slightly - only about .001" of an inch - but due to the distance away from the axis, it manifested itself as more like .005 or .007" out at the lip.. To correct it, I had to take a large metal file and go over the face of the hub and flatten the surface. Once I did that, the runout dropped to more like .001" But to the naked eye, it looked totally fine. It wasn't until I really looked and measured things that I could see there was a slight wobble.

    Try jacking up each wheel, then get a chopstick or something and set it up so the very tip is skimming along the outer edge of your wheel lip - then turn the wheel and see if you see any wobble or anything. It doesn't take much to cause vibrations. Also, if there is even a small error in milling the spacers and/or something isn't sitting perfectly flush, even a very, very tiny error can magnify as it goes out to the edge of the wheel and result in something not spinning laser perfect out at the outer edge.

    The other thing is are your spacers hub centric or not? Again, with my pickup, my spacers needed to be centered using indexing rings. The first set of rings I used weren't a tight fit and the result was that the spacers were not perfectly centered. I had to switch to plastic rings, which I modified slightly; those fit super tight and perfectly centered the spacers to the rotation axis until I could tighten down the lug nuts and pinch everything to the hub. Depending on which spacers you have and whether or not they are fully hub centric, it's possible the spacers themselves are pinched between the hub and the wheel such that gravity pulled them down and thus they are actually not perfectly centered. Again, without very accurate measuring tools, it's easy to over look a lot of these little areas; only to have them all add together to produce vibrations.

    I don't know which shop you're using, but a lot of times these places are just slapping after market parts together with no real eye to all the subtle details.

    Ray
     
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  6. RoadRonin

    RoadRonin Formula Junior
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    Good chance it is the spacers. I experienced this issue years ago and the spacers were the culprits. They need to be hub-centric. Looking forward to your update.
     
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  7. Petrolhead#32

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    Yup, my buddy at the shop just told me that's where he'd start as well. I'll certainly provide you with an update, hopefully soon...

    Thx again.
     
  8. Petrolhead#32

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    Thx a ton for the detailed response!
     
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  9. Petrolhead#32

    Petrolhead#32 Formula Junior
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    Update:

    I visited the shop today. They work on plenty of track cars and they suggest it is a tire issue. I have MSS4Ss. Have had them for about 3 months now and 3-4K miles, including 1 track day and a whole lot of spirited WE drives around the local mountain roads. Note: I didn’t buy the 458 as a GT cruising or take the wife out to dinner. Nothing wrong with those, but I like to drive my cars, hard. Put 5k miles in 5 months. Bought it to drive it. Period. However, I’m not burning the tires nor going sideways ala Chris Harris or anything that extreme. So I just have a hard time believing these tires would wear like that and cause vibration.

    Ok, there’s obvious feathering on the front tires, so the shop says that’s what it is and that’s what’s causing the vibration. They say it’s normal for this tire (which is not meant to be driven as hard like the Cup2s) to cause vibration since it’s being driven hard and it’s feathered. This is specially noticeable at lower temperature.

    I trust these guys, but I must admit that I’m very surprised that a 4S would wear like this and that it would cause the vibration. Also, what I really wonder is if getting the feathering from this type of driving is normal. Maybe an alignment issue?

    Any thoughts?

    My plan is to take it to these guys who are specialists: Custom Alignment - https://g.co/kgs/vL7xm2, and get a second opinion.
     
  10. adamellisdj

    adamellisdj Karting

    Dec 15, 2020
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    I BADLY wanted to lower mine. But a bike/kart racing mechanic friend of mine with a sensible head on his shoulders made my change my mind.

    His view was. Why ruin a £160k car by lowering it after Ferrari spent millions on getting the best setup.

    I lowered my C63s and as cool as it looked, I felt everything, and I don’t think I’d like that in a £160k Ferrari.

    Il save the £2k and keep it the way Ferrari wanted it I think.
     
  11. regy53

    regy53 Rookie

    May 8, 2020
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    I think your car has front lift, mine doesnt and i will drop mine a few mm i think in the next few months

    You will see today the wheels are a bit lost in the arches
     
  12. mdrums

    mdrums Formula 3

    Jun 11, 2006
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    When I lowered my 488 on Novitec springs I added Hill Engineering spacers 11/15mm while I waited for my HRE wheels to come in. I had zero issues at any speed with vibration.

    I did not slam the car, but just a nice lowering to wear the car looks like the press releases and some magazine track tests. The ride is awesome, just a tad stuffer but not huge noticeable difference, less lean in the corners.
     
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  13. RayJohns

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    Some years ago, I had a crazy vibration with my Yamaha R1 at exactly 55-60 MPH and it was driving me crazy trying to find it - the whole god-dang bike would shake from front to back. My neighbor used to race bikes and I mentioned it to him and he immediately said, "it's the tires". I told him, "no, that doesn't make any sense" and he goes, "dude, it's the tires". I thought he was nuts; the tires looked totally fine to me.

    I searched high and low to find where the issue was coming from and made lots of suspension adjustments and did several upgrades... in the end, turned out to be the tires. I installed a fresh set of Pirelli tires, did a static balance to 1/4 gram, and the bike was as smooth as glass from then on.

    Ray
     
  14. Petrolhead#32

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    Ray if that was my case (and I'm not saying it isn't), then that means that in 3 months and 3-4k miles, 1 track day and a few spirited drives, the MSS4s tires in this 458S results in an uncomfortable vibration. Seems odd and certainly disappointing to me.
     
  15. RayJohns

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    My money is still on the spacers, although wheels/tires would be a close second.

    You have to keep in mind that when the car is traveling down the road, there are only so many moving parts capable of producing vibration. It's basically either the motor, gearbox or something spinning on the axles. If you are cruising down the highway at 80 MPH and shift into natural and the vibration doesn't change, it's not the motor.

    Usually vibrations are from poorly balanced wheels/tires. Balancing wheels is an art form and the guys who bolt your wheels to a machine and push a button usually aren't artists.

    Do you know if your spacers are hub-centric? If not, that can certainly add to your issues.

    Ray
     
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  16. Petrolhead#32

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    I'll find out about the spacers. I do know they're high-quality, because the shop I work with only does high-end stuff.

    I don't think it's the engine, since the ride is very smooth in some roads with new pavements. However, as soon as I turn or it's a tiny bit rough road pavement, it's very vibrating, uncomfortably so.

    So I do believe it's all in the balancing and alignment category. I will find out when I take it this specialist (to your point), Custom Alignment. They should be able to help me out.
     
  17. Petrolhead#32

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  18. RayJohns

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    I would start by checking runout of the wheel lips in its current configuration as a base line, just to make sure everything is at least tue and straight.

    Also, try doing a static balance by hand if you can find someone who knows what they are doing. Those machines that spin up the wheels and then some monkey sticks weights on are fine when you're buying new tires for your SIV at Costco, but I personally don't trust them for anything remotely high performance. They are machines largely to allow unskilled labor to get close enough for .gov work.

    Ask your guys how accurately they balance your tires? It's usually only within about 1 or 1.5 ounces. Most wheel weight segments are 5 grams.

    Here's a video clip where I'm doing some balancing on my 458 wheel in my office:



    Ray
     
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  19. RoadRonin

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  20. RayJohns

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    Those look pretty decent, depending on how close the indexing is at the hub area. It's a little worrisome that they are advertising their Titanium lug bolts as having cut threads vs. rolled threads as being better, when the opposite is actually true - forge rolled are always superior.

    7075 alloy is good.

    What you want to do is check to see if the spacer moves around at all when it's in the hub. The issue is that, even though it's billed as "hub centric" (which is a good start), it doesn't mean there is a tight fit that perfectly centers the hub when it's on there. If that's the case - even a few thousands - the result is that the spacer can slip down and rest on the lower part of the hub circle and then it's pinched between the wheel and hub during installation of the wheels, but it's often out of being perfectly concentric. Usually doesn't hurt much, but with very sensitive suspension it can sometimes be felt. On my Toyota, I definitely felt the difference when I corrected that issue with better indexing rings.

    Given the design of the spacers, it's probably more likely a rim that is bent or has some slight runout or tires which are worn, etc. - but it really depends on how tightly they fit.

    Also don't forget that tires have a light spot, which is supposed to be matched to the valve stem area of the wheels. Make sure the yellow or red dot is aligned to the valve stem and check with your tire manufacture to confirm exactly what their dots indicate. If you've got kids mounting your tires, they might not be paying attention to what they are doing. I just had a case on my Highlander where some idiot stick at Costco tried to tell me they couldn't balance one of our tires. Say what? I looked and saw that he had failed to remove the previous wheel weights and was trying to balance the wheels with the old weights still on there. I told him, "You might want to remove the old weights first" - after they did that and rebalanced the wheels (on their little spinning machine) it balanced just fine.

    On my truck, I mounted my tires by hand in the living room using two tire irons and balanced them to a couple of grams using that static balancer shown in the video above. Smooth as glass on the highway.

    Make sure you're dealing with a perfectionist when it comes to mounting and balancing your tires.

    Ray
     
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  21. Petrolhead#32

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    Ray, amazing stuff and thanks for the video! Thx so much. Ultimately, to your point, I need to get the car in the hands of experts. Will update accordingly.
     
  22. Jason B

    Jason B Formula Junior

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    How about an update? Was it the spacers?
     
  23. Petrolhead#32

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    First of all thx for asking.

    Well what I have as of today is not much but it’s something. I haven’t had a chance to take it to the specialist that i mentioned earlier, but I did take it to the regular shop that provides mechanical services.

    First of all, I tried something new and mega simple before going to the shop: I lowered the tire pressure to 28 and 29 (vs 29 and 30 recommended). Amazingly, it did make a difference yesterday when I took it for a spin. Some progress there.

    Next they’re going to work on alignment service tomorrow. We will soon see this if this helps too.

    And then there’s something new and unrelated to the tires or suspension that we identified this morning, that it causes jerky moves and shakes, although more so at lower speeds: random misfire of cylinder 2. It was detected on the diagnosis. The way it does it made me feel like a vibration coming from somewhere, but today we realized it’s due to something else. He’s looking at it tomorrow and will know more. Seems could fairly serious... hope not.

    Will keep u posted.
     
  24. Petrolhead#32

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    New brief update:

    Nothing specific with the wheels/suspension/tires/spacers 'category', but yesterday we changed the spark plugs because we were getting a misfire alert and it was actually contributing to a shake and vibration, mostly at lower speeds, in auto at 30-50 mph in automatic 6-7th gear. I know this is a completely different issue than what we've been discussing on the thread, but TBH it was all part of the same problem for me. Yes I should have distinguished the problem from the wheels or tires issues, but it is what it is.

    Net, net, took it for a short spin last night and the new plugs seem to be working well. See pix attached. Rides much smoother now when going between 30-50 mph in automatic 6-7th gear. Before we changed them, it would shake quite a bit.

    So I guess I'm experiencing 2 separate issues, one just got resolved with the new plugs. The other (wheels/suspension/tires/spacers 'category') seems better given the reduced tire pressure. I went from 34-35 to 28-29 and the difference is substantial, which I didn't expect.

    But I haven't really driven it that much so this WE I'll evaluate again.
     

    Attached Files:

  25. Sargepug

    Sargepug Formula Junior
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    Sorry to hear you are having this issue, here is a pic of my Novitec rear spring to give you an idea of the ride height and my rear spacers are Novitec 15mm in the rear. No spacers in the front and I am using the stock 20" setup.

    Image Unavailable, Please Login View attachment 1792069
     

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